CHICAGO (Illinois) – A man was arrested Friday after the discovery of four men kidnapped aged for years in a slum, and three women psychologically vulnerable in Houston, in the southern United States, police said.

The men, aged 80, 74, 65 and fifties, were lured into an old garage with the promise of beer and cigarettes. They could not get out and had to surrender their pension checks at their guardian, said the spokesman of the police, Kese Smith told AFP. They slept on the floor covered with linoleum, and had no access to toilets, he said, adding that the only furniture was a chair.

According to Sergeant Steve Murdock interviewed by the Houston Chronicle, the men seem to be disabled or the homeless attracted to what one of them called the dungeon. They were trapped in the house, he added.

Three women were also found on the premises. They lived in better conditions, but the police has yet to determine if they were captives and how they got there.

A man who did not live in the house, was arrested but had not been charged late Friday afternoon.

Men discovered by alerted by a call Police were found in a room converted into a prison, locked, said local TV KTRK.

Three of them malnourished, were hospitalized.

One of the men said on television that he had been there for six months and did not want to leave. A second said the police had been there for 10 years, the other two for less time.